


The Voluntary Haunting of Carlos Molina

by SquirrelNo2



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Gen, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquirrelNo2/pseuds/SquirrelNo2
Summary: Carlos's life philosophy is that when you live with literal ghosts and Halloween rolls around, you have to do something with it.Nobody in Carlos's family is quite as excited as he is (except maybe Reggie) but that's ok. They're all helping out, anyway.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 79





	The Voluntary Haunting of Carlos Molina

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be quick, and cute, and something to tide us over until I was ready schedule-wise to jump back into Phantom Singular stuff. I'm ready now, but emotionally. Because this was a train wreck to write. I know nothing about haunted houses, or hauntings in general, and my wonderful beautiful irl friends could only offer me such tidbits of wisdom as "there's ghosts".  
> Anyway, take whatever this mess is, as proof that as sad as my usual gets sometimes, it's leagues better than me trying to write straight-up fluff. Also I just wanted to write Alex and Julie silently bonding over being older siblings.

Alex probably shouldn’t have been surprised when Carlos turned up to the studio with a massive bag of fake cobwebs.

“What are you doing?” Julie asked as he set about stretching the cobwebs over every available surface.

“Decorating,” Carlos said.

“In the studio?” Julie asked flatly.

The Molinas’ house was already thoroughly cobwebbed and blacklit. Carlos had practically dragged Ray (and, by extension, Reggie) around every inch of the place to cover it in Halloween decorations. Alex would have thought the kid had gotten it out of his system by now.

Clearly not.

“Julie!” Alex whined, alarmed when Carlos approached his drum set with a sinister gleam in his eyes. Julie snatched Carlos up around the waist, ignoring his frantic wriggling as only a big sibling could. She dumped him by the door.

“You know, I think having live-in ghosts is more than enough Halloween for the studio,” Julie said.

“Julie! You’re a genius!” Carlos spun around and hugged her.

“What?” Julie asked. She looked to Alex, Luke, and Reggie for help. Alex could only shrug.

“We live in an actual haunted house!” Carlos exclaimed.

“Oh, no,” Alex said.

“Oh, yes!” Reggie said. “Little dude, _you’re_ a genius!”

Alex looked at Luke for help, who shrugged.

“Could be fun,” he said. Alex groaned.

“What exactly are you planning?” Julie asked her brother sternly.

“Picture this: on Halloween, we invite people over for an actual, literal haunted house experience.”

“You think people will be scared of my band?” Julie asked sceptically.

“ _Tía_ Victoria was,” Carlos said.

“So you don’t mind if your classmates think you have a demonic roommate?” Julie checked.

Carlos looked at her like she was the weird one.

“That would be the coolest possible outcome, Julie,” he said. “What do you say, boy band?”

“Why does he keep calling us that?” Luke asked as Reggie practically bounced over to the siblings.

“Yes! Julie, tell him I said yes! This is gonna be so cool!”

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to go along with this,” Alex said to Luke.

“It’s just a haunted house, right? Everybody will think it’s special effects anyway,” Luke said. “I’m in, _if_ he stops calling us a boy band.”

“We were a boy band until very recently,” Alex muttered. Both Luke and Reggie were watching him, waiting for his verdict, and he sighed.

“Fine,” he said. Julie threw up her hands, clearly even less enthused about the plan than Alex.

“They say yes,” she said.

“I’ll go get the bedsheets!” Carlos said, but Julie grabbed his collar before he could run out.

“Oh, no, if we’re doing this, we’re doing it right,” she said. “I’m calling Flynn, you’re making sure Dad is ok with the whole haunted house thing, and then we will brainstorm the scariest ghost things we can think of.”

“Yes!” Carlos cried gleefully, scampering away as soon as Julie let go of him.

“What?” she said when she noticed the incredulous way her bandmates were watching her. “I’m not going to turn my house into an attraction if it’s not _amazing_.”

“You’re excited, aren’t you?” Reggie said gleefully. Julie rolled her eyes, unable to suppress her smile completely.

“Like Luke said, it could be fun.”

As soon as Ray said it was all right, Flynn shoed up armed with dark fabric, a makeup kit, and a jar full of old trinkets she’d picked up at a thrift store.

“I figure ghosts, old, if we really want to sell it maybe we don’t lean so much into the ‘90’s thing?” Flynn said as Julie examined the jar sceptically. “This is for ideas.”

“Will makeup even work on us?” Luke wondered, opening an eyeshadow palette and peering inside like it contained the secrets of the universe. Flynn snatched it from him, glaring at the space just between Luke and Alex.

“Only one way to find out, I guess,” Julie said. “You know if this does work, nobody’s going to see it, right, Flynn?”

“I thought you could perform at the end,” Flynn said. “That way people walk away going, ‘oh, it’s a clever marketing ploy’ and not ‘oh, Julie has literal ghosts in her house.’”

“That’s probably better than what Carlos wanted,” Alex said, unfurling a sheer roll of dark purple fabric. He wasn’t sure this was much of an improvement on bedsheets.

Julie laughed. At Flynn’s inquiring look, she explained, “Alex thinks it’s better than Carlos’s plan.”

“Which was what?” Flynn asked, sounding appropriately wary.

“Convince his classmates that we live with demons,” Julie said, tugging Reggie closer with eyeliner in hand.

“You are _so_ lucky you have me,” Flynn said after a moment.

“Oh, I know,” Julie said.

Makeup did work on them, though it did not, as Flynn admitted she’d secretly hoped, appear floating in mid-air like some kind of ghostly face.

“Maybe if we used a whole lot of foundation…” Flynn said. “But also, I definitely don’t have the right shade, and I have no idea who we could ask who would.”

“Good,” Luke said, pulling a series of weird faces. “I’ll never understand how people wear makeup for entire days. I can _feel_ it. How do you focus?”

“Practice,” Julie said. “Fun. Sometimes knowing you’re wearing it is the point.”

Luke rubbed his lips together like he thought he could rub the lipstick off. Alex tried not to laugh.

“Like you can talk!” Luke said, pouting. That was fair. Alex had flinched every time something came near his eyes, resulting in a lot of smudges on his temples and Julie giving up in frustration. He kind of looked like a Star Trek alien at this point, which in fairness was its own kind of Halloween look.

“What are you doing?” Carlos said. He waved a piece of paper in the air as he marched into the studio. “This isn’t makeover time! We’re on an urgent mission for haunting supplies!”

“We were trying to see if we could make the guys look like… anything, really,” Flynn said.

“Hey!” Reggie objected. “First of all, we look great. Now and in general.”

“To her, we don’t look like anything,” Alex said.

“Carlos, why is there a list of butcher’s shops on this?” Flynn asked, having snatched the paper from his grasp.

“Nobody is going to believe they died here if there isn’t a little bit of blood,” Carlos said.

“There are entire stores dedicated to Halloween, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to find some fake blood, you weirdo,” Flynn said. “You know that’s gross and weird, right?”

He shrugged.

“Worth a try. I like the realism.”

“Antique china?” Julie read.

“So the guys can break things without it being any of our stuff!”

“We are not buying actual, good dishes just to break them,” Julie said. “We can get some of those plates you paint yourself.”

“Julie, we have actual ghosts in our house. Do you want people to walk away from our actually haunted house thinking we were cheap on the special effects?”

“Considering the alternative is people figuring out that we’re actually ghosts, yeah!” Alex said. Julie pointed at him in agreement before realising that neither Carlos nor Flynn knew what he’d said. She sighed.

“We will make it look real, but half of this stuff we’re faking anyway. The truth is real ghosts just aren’t scary.”

“Well,” Reggie hedged. Luke made a doubtful noise in the back of his throat.

“ _Most_ ghosts,” Julie said. “What, do you guys _want_ me to stereotype you?”

“I appreciate your efforts,” Alex said. “Though, yeah, there is at least one scary ghost out there.”

“And he’s _definitely_ not invited, which brings us back to my point,” Julie said. “Let’s just… go find some things the guys can throw around without breaking anything – or anyone.”

Carlos got his way with the plates, sort of, because they stopped at a thrift store and found a set that was chipped already.

“If we do this, we absolutely cannot break them anywhere near an actual person,” Julie said, blocking Carlos from grabbing the set. “And you have to clean up the shards.”

“Deal. Julie, it will look so cool!”

Julie looked to Alex, Reggie and Luke.

“We’ll be good,” Alex promised.

“You know we’re not _actually_ scary evil ghosts, right?” Luke teased. She made a face at them and passed the dishes to Carlos.

“Ok, anything else?” Julie said as Carlos punched the air with glee.

“How about this?” Flynn said. She was eyeing an old clock. “The guys push the hands around a few times, stop at midnight or something?”

“That could work,” Luke said.

“Ooh! I get to do that!” Reggie exclaimed.

“Apparently we needed a cart,” Julie muttered. Reggie nearly went to get one, and she grabbed his arm hastily.

“We’re haunting our house, remember? Not a store?” she muttered.

“Right,” Reggie said. “You should do it, then.”

“Thanks, that’s so nice of you,” Julie said. Alex tried not to laugh as Julie hurried off.

The cashier didn’t seem fazed by the fact that their haul ultimately consisted of the dishes, the clock, three long coats for the boys to experiment with making clothes visible (or maybe just wiggling them around), and a threadbare old rug Reggie insisted he could do something with.

“You’re just going to wave it around like you did the bedsheet, aren’t you?” Alex asked him in line.

“No!” Reggie said, in a tone of voice that told Alex the answer was yes.

Julie laughed quietly. That got a weird glance from the cashier, which Alex thought was rude. Honestly, people laughing to themselves was hardly the height of bizarre. Some people were ghosts!

He considered that thought, and then decided to let it be.

“Is this enough for you, now?” Julie asked Carlos. “We can stop at a Halloween store and get some fake blood, but I’m pretty sure the decorations we already have up and the guys messing with things should be enough.”

“I can make do,” Carlos announced. Julie and Alex exchanged glances over his head.

“Good of him,” Alex said to Julie. Julie coughed to hide her laugh.

In the weeks leading up to Halloween, Carlos was as adamant about rehearsing the haunted house process as Luke was about band rehearsal. Thankfully, they didn’t have to break any plates – they would have run out of both plates and Ray’s goodwill very quickly – but that didn’t stop Carlos from giving them instructions about how to throw the plates. Neither did the fact that he couldn’t actually see what they were doing.

“Tell him I’m doing it right,” Alex said as Carlos waited for him to mime throwing a plate again.

“Carlos, I think their arms are getting a little tired,” Julie said diplomatically. “Halloween is in three days, maybe you just… walk us through the plan so we remember, and we can get back to rehearsing? _Unless_ you want your really authentic haunted house to end with a bad show.”

“You’re performing,” Carlos said, as though the idea of Julie putting on a bad show was ridiculous. Not that Alex disagreed with that, really. “But fine. I suppose we shouldn’t exhaust the talent.”

Julie laughed. “Come on, let’s go –“

“ _Mijos,_ is it true?”

“ _Tía_ , what are you doing here?” Julie asked. She glanced at Carlos, then at the ghosts. Alex wasn’t exactly Julie’s keeper, but he couldn’t think of any major academic or household disasters of the kind that usually drew Victoria to the Molina house. Julie’s family had even been eating fewer leftovers and takeout, lately.

“I was talking to your father, and he said you were doing a haunted house,” Victoria said. “Carlos! What are you thinking? What if the ghost comes back?”

“The chef ghost has definitely moved on, _Tía_ , I’m a professional,” he said.

“Should we tell him there’s no chef?” Reggie asked.

“Well, there isn’t now, and he’s right about that,” Luke pointed out. “Maybe we let him have this.”

“ _Tía_ Victoria, we’re just putting on a show. It’s to promote the Phantoms!” Julie said. “Flynn and Carlos came up with it.”

 _Thank you,_ Carlos mouthed at Julie while his aunt wasn’t looking.

“After what happened in this house before? That _demon_? You are inviting trouble, Carlos!”

“I’m not a demon,” Reggie muttered, pouting.

“What’s going on?” Ray had entered. “What happened?”

“I can’t believe you’re letting them do this haunted house. It’s asking for a supernatural disaster!”

Ray eyed the coats draped over the chair and the clock the kids had hung by the stairs. There had been a near miss the day before when Ray nearly walked in on Alex, Luke and Reggie as they demonstrated to Carlos that they could make the coats “appear” by wearing them and then taking them off.

“I think there are plenty of disasters that could happen without bothering anything supernatural,” he said. “Look, I said it was all right. It’s for Julie’s band, and Carlos’ Youtube. They’re just playing with practical special effects.”

“You’re sure? There’s nothing occult going on?”

“Oh, Julie! We should have got a Ouija board!”

“Carlos,” Ray said, rubbing his face. Victoria looked horrified.

“We’ll just… make one out of a Scrabble game,” Julie said. “No magic required! Just, you know… tilt a table, with one of those motors, it’ll work great!”

That would have been very convincing had she not said it with a sickeningly wide smile.

“Look, you don’t have to be here while it’s running, they’re just doing it for one night. Julie’s band is performing at the end, so you could just duck in the back if you want to see,” Ray offered.

“Or you could come through the house,” Carlos blurted. “If you want. We can make sure it’s not too scary.”

Victoria looked at him, her face softening.

“ _Mijo_ , I may not want to be around real ghosts, but I have no problems with a good scare,” she said. “How do you think I know so much about them in the first place? You really want me to come?”

Carlos shrugged, looking embarrassed by his unguarded request.

“Fine,” Victoria said. She waved an accusatory finger around the room, taking in everyone with her stern gaze, even the ghosts she didn't know about. Alex felt appropriately cowed. “Fine, I will come, but if a demon comes we are all leaving this house!”

Julie grinned, her shoulders shaking like she was keeping back a laugh.

“Deal,” she said.

Ray and Victoria ended up heading into the living room, and Carlos started to gather up their haunted house supplies to put away. Julie grabbed the coats and followed him.

When Julie walked past Alex, Luke and Reggie, she lowered her voice.

“Don’t be too scary, all right? Let’s not find out how long demonic quarantine lasts.”

“Ok, see, you say that, and now I’m wondering about it,” Alex said.

“It’s gotta be at least a month, right?” Luke asked as Julie and Carlos went up the stairs.

“But we’re not _demons_ ,” Reggie said, still sounding hurt.

“Not to Victoria, we’re not,” Alex said. “Though I still think Carlos has his heart set on us scaring the heck out of his classmates.”

“Dude, do you think that’s weird?” Luke asked.

“At that age? Pretty sure we’d have taken advantage of live-in ghosts, too,” Alex pointed out.

Between Carlos’s classmates and Julie’s, there were quite a few people outside the Molina house on Halloween night.

“Does nobody trick-or-treat anymore?” Reggie asked.

“Maybe they already did it?” Luke suggested.

The plan was to let small groups go in one at a time, so the boys could scare them effectively; Flynn would lead them through and around to the studio, where things were set up more like a party so people wouldn’t get bored waiting for the show part of the evening. Alex had to admit to a little stage fright.

“All I'm saying is our only prior haunting experience is with Bobby," he said. "And whatever Reggie was doing when he scared Julie's aunt. Are we really qualified for this?"

Luke stared at him blankly.

"Dude. We're ghosts," he said.

"Not like we're good at it," Alex muttered.

"Ok, let's go, people!" Carlos announced, clapping his hands as he stepped outside to look at the people waiting. They'd blocked off the porch, so they could let groups in without a whole flood of people, and Carlos seemed very pleased by his ability to stand at the top of the steps and survey the beginnings of what he had wrought.

The first "group" was actually Victoria and Ray, who mostly seemed amused by the band's antics as Flynn led them through the house. Alex supposed knowing the people who "made the special effects" would do that. It _was_ nice that Victoria wasn't accusing them of having any involvement with the devil today.

"They should be a little scared," Reggie said plaintively when Luke dramatically slammed a door and only got little jumps of surprise in response. "Ooh!"

He ran out, leaving Alex and Luke to mess with the clock.

"What is he doing?" Luke asked as Alex pushed the hands around. He kept one eye on the door Reggie had vanished through, since it didn't really matter what he did and also Reggie unsupervised on Halloween could only lead to disaster.

"At this point, I'm afraid to ask," Alex said. They got their answer anyway a moment later, when Reggie returned and dropped a handful of Scrabble tiles on the floor behind Ray and Victoria. Flynn, who'd been standing by the clock in the hopes of drawing attention to it, jumped. Ray and Victoria turned around to see what she'd been looking at, and Victoria grabbed Ray's arm.

"You said you knew all the tricks they would pull," she hissed at Ray.

"Seriously? That is a betrayal," Flynn told Ray, distracted from her "mysterious tour guide" persona for a moment.

"Yeah, that's like revealing a magician's secrets or something," Reggie said. Then he frowned. "Actually, I don't really like magicians anymore, so it's worse than that."

"He's got a point," Luke muttered as Reggie sat down and busily sorted through the Scrabble tiles. Victoria squeaked.

"It's our names!"

"You know the kids know who we are, right?" Ray asked, though he was holding onto her hand with a tight, bloodless grip. Alex and Luke exchanged knowing glances.

"I guess the ghosts have decided to greet you," Flynn said as quickly as she could while keeping up her creepy tone. She made a face in Reggie's direction. Reggie was too busy spelling out words to notice, though Alex snickered. "Let's move on before they decide to keep you here."

"This is my house," Ray muttered sulkily, casting a wary glance back at the Scrabble tiles on the floor as Victoria nearly dragged him from the room.

They finished the first circuit of the house without further incident (or improvisation, as the case may be). Victoria was much more easily spooked, though. Finally, Alex, Luke, and Reggie left Flynn to finish up and circled back to Julie and Carlos. The next group seemed to be kids around Carlos's age.

"I hope you didn't scare _Tía_ Victoria too much," Julie muttered as the new group filed onto the porch. One boy in particular was eyeing the fake cobwebs with disdain.

"We did fine until Reggie decided to take your Scrabble thing and run with it," Alex said.

"Oops," Julie muttered. They'd assumed all they need to do was talk Carlos out of things, after all; it was probably Alex's own fault he hadn't considered Reggie's equal enthusiasm.

"You're desperate, Carlos," one of the kids said. It was the snooty boy Alex noticed earlier. "Is this for your stupid Youtube channel? You're so bad at ghost-hunting you have to make them up yourself?"

"This is a real haunted house," Carlos said without any of his usual excitement.

"I don't like this kid," Luke said, looming over the boy like he could intimidate him even while invisible.

"Yeah, what's his problem?" Reggie asked.

"Just like you _really_ found ghosts before? You ate a sandwich and you made a video about it."

"If you don't even believe why are you here?" Carlos retorted, folding his arms.

"Because I'm gonna expose you," the kid taunted.

"Good luck with that," Luke muttered as Carlos laughed.

"If you can find any wires or cameras, then I deserve it," Carlos said. "It's all real."

Reggie and Luke high-fived.

"Hey, Julie, what's this kid's name?" Alex said. "I think he's got a date with some Scrabble tiles, and maybe a broken plate."

"Absolutely," Julie said grimly. "Hey, look. You paid the price of admission, but if you're too scared to see the ghosts, you can go home right now."

The kid glared up at her.

"Bet it's some of your stupid holograms," he muttered.

"And I bet you're just jealous because there's nothing that sets you apart from any other fourth-grader," Julie said. The door opened to reveal Flynn, and Julie looked over her shoulder and gave Flynn a solemn nod. Flynn's eyebrows rose. "Now, your tour guide has arrived. So make your decision and go."

"Jake here is a non-believer, Flynn!" Carlos announced with some of his old drama. "Make sure he has a good time, all right?"

Flynn's eyebrows rose further. She looked gleeful.

"I won't need to do a thing with our ghosts around," she said. "But I'll do my best anyway."

The kid - Jake - displayed his first sign of a self-preservation instinct by gulping.

As Flynn ushered the kids in, she paused to whisper to Julie, "We hate this kid, right?"

"He was mean to Carlos," Julie said, equally quietly.

"Ok, so yes. Good to know." She left the door open, and Alex happily slammed it shut as Luke poofed inside and turned out the hall lights completely. Reggie smashed one of the plates at the other end of the hall, following it up with a quick splash of fake blood that was revealed when Luke flickered the lights on and off. The kids shrieked, Flynn cackled, and when Alex glanced through the window he saw Julie and Carlos fist-bump.

Halloween was actually a lot of fun, as a ghost.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun facts: in the makeup scene, literally everybody is inspired by me. Luke got that neurodivergent feel of "there is a Thing on my Face" and I'm not just writing guys being weird about makeup because that's boring and also I imagine a rock band would have some experience with stage makeup. (Alex got that "I know I've done this before but that doesn't make it better" vibe which consistently drives people nuts when they have to help me do eyeliner before shows. Reggie and Julie lucked out and got the "cute makeup selfie" vibes.) The scene was NOT actually a reference to the promo picture where Reggie's got eyeliner, but I did remember the picture existed halfway through writing it.


End file.
